Helpful ReplyHot![FAQ][FAQ] GYM THREAD

RaptYeah looks like it. It seemed like he really knew his stuff when it came to health and nutrition.

This whole 'perfect diet' debate is a minefield, especially the high fat/low carb thing. I watched the debate on JRE last night and was just left completely confused, both constantly referencing and dismissing one another's studies. It seems that according to studies going back 60 years there is a strong correlation between high cholesterol and high risk of heart disease but more recent studies in the last 5 years completely contradict this.

Poliquin was well known for being a bit of a quack amongst some of his contemporaries. His "go hard or go home" attitude smelled bad to me, coaches with that one size fits all/arrogant mentality stick out like a sore thumb.

Did a lot of gear when he was younger too as I understand it, had heart bypasses in his 30s?

High cholesterol in the diet and high cholesterol in the bloodstream are two different matters. Check out Robert Lustig's book "Fat Chance" where he covers the debate about the causes of heart disease. The sugar industry has a lot of answer for.

Ha.... 400's aren't too bad... can blast them out, and if you've got reasonable recovery, then 90 seconds is a good rest, basically enough time to walk 100 metres to allow you to keep the legs moving. Though the fatigue does build up and when it hits, its pretty debilitating.

I find it's 800's or 1000's that hurt most, a cruel combination between speed and endurance. I'd certainly find 8 x 800m an even harder prospect than 16 x 400m.

I was doing sprints for reps earlier in the year, I found it very enjoyable- the emphasis was on quality so it was flat out 60 ms, working up to 8 reps.

Gave myself a nice dose of achilles tendonitis!

I used to get stuck running 400s as a kid as I was neither fast enough for 100s and too slow for 8's and I can honestly say I genuinely believe it's the worst distance going. That last straight is a long way from fun. Your ultra marathon distances don't count, they aren't for humans

I think I’m getting bored of 5/5. Once I peak I can’t really progress further. And if I don’t go for a week or so then it takes time getting back to peak again. Shame as I loved the build up to peak but wasn’t seeing much gains although I was probably stronger internally

Used to do push/pull years ago and liked it. Will move to that and keep in squats

Yeah you can go all out and do another day for legs, I just chuck in the squats here and there at the end of workouts.

There's just too much rest for the muscle group on the 5/5. Only need 48 hrs recovery, especially if you're taking quality supplements. Can hit 'em much more regularly on push/pulls, and there's more room for variety on exercises IMO.

I used to think pull was back and biceps, push was chest and triceps and I did this for a while but looking at my old routine there’s some contradictions. For example, wide grip pull ups for triceps is actually pull

Last sunday ran in the final race of the Welsh Fell Running Championships. Although the weather was not too bad by the time we left the start line, it was atrocious beforehand and the day before, and was pretty nasty driving there down the M6 & M54, so the damage was already done to the terrain

Finished 28th over some pretty gruesome and slippery climbs and descents. 7 miles took me 1hr08, which shows the difficulty of moving over this terrain and gradient... that sort of distance on a road or track i'd be looking at something around 45mins.

Now it's the start of the Cross Country season, which is incredibly hard work, and fast going over shorter courses than i like. The Birmingham League is regarded as just about the top league in Europe, covering a large geographical area from Stoke on Trent down to Cheltenham, and Telford across to Northampton, and some proper high quality teams such as Birchfield Harriers, Loughborough Uni, Cheltenham, Tipton, as well as us from Cov. Take the foot off the gas for even a few seconds and people stream past you. I reckon of a field of 300 people, you have to go back to around 250th place before the quality drops off. Everything above that is an absolute battle for every place.

Also got a couple of ultras on the mountains in December... 55 miles over the Cheviot Hills in Northumbria, then a fortnight later another 38 mile race in the Lakes.

I've seen the odd person do that, there might be the odd one on YouTube. Most fell runners are pretty old-skool so you don't see stuff like that often though.

I was in Llanberis in Sept for one of the toughest races of the year (Peris Horseshoe), and it happened to be on at the same time as a "trail race" sponsored by a sports shoe manufacturer. The difference in the status of the events, and indeed the competitors, was pretty stark.

The trail runners had a marked course, which admittedly go up Snowdon, but apart from that it was pretty tame, was fully marked, and the runners were all iPod'd up, pristine calf guards, arm guards etc.

The fellrunners looked like utter tramps in comparison.

Due to a shortage of runners, I've surprisingly been catapulted into the first team for my club tomorrow in the Midlands cross-country relay champs (I.e I'm running in the team with the real fast younger guys, who can knock out a 10km in easily less than 35mins). I'm running the glory final leg. Highly likely that we will be right at the sharp end of the race, until it's handed over to me to bring it home. With the best will in the world, I am not of the standard to be competing at the front end of a race of that standard, and could well see us dropping out of the podium places during my leg, or worse. But I'm stepping up there, and hopefully it spurs me on to run significantly better than last year and justify their faith in me.

Good idea, if no one else is really doing it and there's enough interest you could end up with a popular YT channel, factor in sponsorship etc with brands within that area and you could make decent wedge, obviously it's a slow start but with decent editing and interesting enough content it could be worth your time and from the sounds of things you're pretty decent at this mental running malarky Travs

As expected, we were riding high, and it was left to me to bring home the glory on the "honour leg", and as expected, it didn't happen....

After two legs we were leading, had dropped to 2nd on the penultimate leg.... I took off in 2nd place overall, had dropped to 4th by the end of the first lap, and dropped to 6th by the finish. Never a nice feeling to see far superior athletes go flying past you, especially in front of a fairly big crowd, but I'm fairly pleased I held it together and we held onto 6th. There's nothing more I could do.

The other guys in my team, and the front runners around me, were knocking out their legs (6km, off road, with some hills) in 19 mins, which is almost beyond belief, and decent for 5km never mind 6km. I was more like 22:30, which is still fairly decent going. Must have lapped about 50 people but that is immaterial really.

8 x 800 metres. Two minutes rest after the first rep, and lose 10 seconds off each subsequent rest period. The idea being that you maintain the same pace throughout, but on less recovery, therefore the fatigue builds up.

Probably not recommended for anyone not planning to run seriously, probably better off sticking to "standard" intervals.

I was obviously working hard, as it was a real chore just to look at my watch at the end of each rep, remember how much rest I was allowed, and then calculate when I needed to start running again... just remembering simple things like that are difficult when pushing to your limit.

This all came to a head in the second half, when I couldn't even remember which rep I was on, and had to ask a couple of people that I lapped, which rep they were on.

Physically it was going well until rep 6 when my legs seemed to turn to concrete. Probably a result of racing Saturday, then two massive hill sessions since, totalling about 8500ft of climb. Probably keep it easy for the rest of the week as racing again this weekend.

Raced in Snowdonia today. 6 miles, straight up to the top of a mountain and straight back down again. No tactics, just balls out from the start.

Was troubling the top 10 on the way up, but had a big fall on the way down, was travelling at a manic pace and my tumble only stopped by crashing knee-first into a massive rock. At the time, race is on and adrenaline is pumping, so I shrugged it off, but once I'd sat down at the finish I could barely move my leg again, and the three hour drive home was less than fun.

Held on for 15th despite the crash. Weather was absolutely foul on the mountain, turned round into the wind at the summit cairn, and could hardly make progress (downhill) against the wind and rain.

1st cross country league race of the season this afternoon in Cheltenham. Standard was unbelieveable. I ran an off-road 10km in less than 39 mins, including three stream crossings, and it was by no means flat, not to mention the rain and slippy conditions, and still only finished 200 out of 300. No wonder they say it's the top cross-country league in Europe (along with the London Metropolitan league).

Our new recruit, a Somalian refugee, who's last race was for the refugee team in the World Athletics Champs against Mo Farah, could only finish 6th. Mental standard.

Got a 15 mile fell race tomorrow. Might have to take it as a training run as I can't see myself breaking any records after today.

15 mile fell race today over the Roaches and various other hills in the Peak District/Staffordshire Moorlands.

After racing the cross-country yesterday I felt pretty ropey, so started right at the back of the "grid" and aimed to take it as a training run. Made good progress through the field, and reached the halfway point 5mins faster than last time, so I gunned it for the 2nd half, and finished 2:42 which was a pb by 15mins.

Guess I'm just a lot stronger than last time I raced this one (two years ago), and more able to grind out the tough hills a lot better, and keep running them when I'd previously be reduced to a shuffle.

Only 3 weeks until a 55 mile race across the Cheviot Hills, think that's looking like a good 18-20 hours, assuming I can keep going. The Cheviots are pretty uncompromising and far from the beaten path.

I feel like such a fat wasteman reading your posts Travs. Have you always been such a beast?

Started running this year after around 20 years of inactivity, after going 3 times a week for 10 months I can just about manage 5k and then I want to die. Admittedly I've had the odd month off here and there...

Always been into sport. Was a decent cross-country runner in my teens, but then Sunday football and raving took over and between the years of about 23-27 I lost a lot of fitness, drank too much, etc.

Got into Muay Thai and messed about at that for a couple of years before taking it seriously and reaching a decent standard and able to fight. Then only got into Fell Running in 2015, but I obviously had a fair level of fitness behind me.

Wish I'd got into it in my teens, I could have been really decent. Making up for lost time really.